by Dan Wolken, USA TODAY Sports

by Dan Wolken, USA TODAY Sports

For most intents and purposes, the headquarters of the American Athletic Conference were no different Monday than they were last Friday. There hasn't even been enough time to change out the signage on the front of their downtown Providence, R.I., building that used to reflect one of the most powerful names in college athletics.

"We're working on that now," commissioner Mike Aresco said by phone Monday. "We're getting there. There's some major stuff there we've been working on, but it'll be done soon."

Of course, for the conference formerly known as the Big East, the process of breaking ties with its old brand has literally been happening for months. The turn of midnight Monday only made it legal and proper, with the birth of the American and a new 10-school alignment (for the moment, anyway) that will press forward without the seven Catholic, non-football schools who now comprise the new Big East.

And though it was a day Aresco never hoped he'd see when he became the Big East's commissioner last August, it feels like the focus has finally shifted to the future of the American â?? whatever it may hold â?? as opposed the dysfunctional past of a league that was probably destined to fall apart.

"I think I feel a sense of satisfaction that we weathered real adversity and came through it with a good group of schools that deserve a good conference to play in," Aresco said. "We were in jeopardy. It's a bittersweet feeling a little bit, but that's almost worn off now."

Since the December announcement that the so-called "Catholic 7" would break away and form their own league with the backing of Fox Sports, the Big East offices in Providence have been about as awkward a place as college athletics has ever seen. For the last six months, employees have essentially been running a league in which 12 of the 16 members are slated to leave by 2014.

And though the American will lose two members after its first season â?? Louisville is headed to the ACC and Rutgers is on the way to the Big Ten â?? Monday was more than just a day to roll out a redesigned website and start printing documents on new stationary. For the first time in awhile, there were no administrative complexities, no more confusion about a league calling itself the Big East even as it started promoting the American. (As recently as late May, for instance, league employees didn't even have shirts with the new logo to wear at the BCS meetings.)

The question now is what kind of impact the American will have on the landscape of college sports, and like much of what has happened since he took the job, that is mostly out of Aresco's control.

Though the Big East was a dominant brand in college basketball, the value of the name in the football world had been battered beyond repair by the end. Once Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College left for the ACC a decade ago, the Big East had become synonymous with a lesser brand of football and all that was wrong with the BCS system. It wasn't necessarily fair â?? the ACC, for instance, has a far worse track record in BCS bowl games â?? but narratives are hard to reverse. For the sixth-best conference, having an automatic BCS bid in an era when the deck was seemingly stacked against programs like Boise State and TCU was not viewed favorably by the public.

So in some ways, it's to the American's advantage that it begins Monday essentially with a clean slate. Some of those who follow the sport daily will mock it as Conference USA 2.0, and it's true that by 2014 the league will have six schools from the old C-USA, but by and large the image of the new league will be shaped by how it fares going forward.

"We're optimistic and everybody has a real palpable sense of that and we'll see how it goes," Aresco said. "We have to perform."

It will be a challenge. Though the league will retain its automatic BCS slot this season, it will not have a preferred spot in the new postseason system. Every year, the American will have to fight it out with the Mountain West, the Mid-American Conference, Conference USA and the Sun Belt for one guaranteed spot in a major bowl attached to the lucrative College Football Playoff.

And with that status, everything becomes incrementally tougher from the financial disparity ($20-plus million per school in TV money for the power conferences to roughly $2 million annually for schools in the American) to the difficulties in securing attractive bowl agreements against the "Power Five" conferences.

"I can understand why a lot of those conferences would want to play each other," Aresco said. "There's no conspiracy there; it's understandable, but we're working around it."

The groundwork, however, has been laid for the American to make a positive first impression on the national landscape. Louisville is a preseason top-10 team this year, and most schools have set up their non-conference schedules to give them plenty of good opportunities against power conference opponents over the next few seasons. The American will have ESPN as its primary television rights holder, promising plenty of exposure and an immediate recruiting edge. And in men's basketball, the league should be among the nation's best in Year 1 with Louisville, UConn and Memphis perhaps all being ranked in the preseason top-15.

Now that the sentimental and operational transition from Big East to American is complete, it's up to the schools to make it work.

"We look at what we've accomplished since December with the TV deals, the revenue distribution formula, the new name, the new logo, expansion, starting our own digital network, sites for the basketball tournaments, the branding, marketing deals, bowls â?? it's an awful lot," Aresco said. "Now we have a real sense of optimism and it's a good day. You don't see too many times when you can have a reinvented conference, and I think it reflects what we are. We're strivers, we're challengers."

Other ongoing developments with the American:

- Aresco said the league hopes to announce some bowl tie-ins soon and could have several partnerships with the "Power 5" conferences. Some possibilities include the bowl in Birmingham against an SEC team, the Military Bowl against the ACC, the Beef O'Brady's Bowl in Tampa/St. Petersburg and a rotating tie-in with the Hawaii Bowl. The American would also like to partner with the Liberty Bowl against the Big 12 and perhaps play the Pac 12 in a bowl game.

"Hopefully we can get a school from one of those conferences to establish our own bowl," Aresco said. The league has been looking at Miami for the creation of a new bowl in which it would be the anchor league.

The American is also studying whether it might be better not to over-commit to bowl contracts, especially with leagues like the SEC and Big Ten looking at as many as 10 tie-ins, some of which might go unfilled in a given year.

"Sometimes you're not sure you can deliver teams and you might be better off going to a bowl that needs an at-large team because other conferences have committed pretty heavily," Aresco said.

- Though it's considered a given that Rutgers and Louisville will depart the American in 2014, no formal agreements have been reached. League bylaws mandate a 27-month waiting period, but West Virginia, Syracuse, Pittsburgh and Notre Dame all negotiated to leave early. Aresco said negotiations with Louisville have remained amicable but that dealings with Rutgers have been tied up in a "frivolous" lawsuit.

"We're likely to figure something out," Aresco said.

- When Louisville and Rutgers leave and East Carolina, Tulsa and Tulane join in 2014, the league will have 11 all-sports members. Navy is coming as a football-only member in 2015. Asked whether the American would consider inviting a non-football school to balance things out â?? a relevant basketball program like VCU or Wichita State, for instance, would help boost the league's profile â?? Aresco said it remains unlikely.

"We're hesitant to go back to that model where we have basketball-only," he said. "I think our basketball should be fine with 11. I don't think we need to add a team, a basketball school, to balance it off. It gets you back into the same waters you just waded out of."

Dan Wolken, a national college football reporter for USA TODAY Sports, is on Twitter @DanWolken.